[The Brahma heavenly kings said,] “We have come from many heavens and have left deep meditative joys for the sake of serving the buddha. Our palaces are magnificently adorned as rewards for our former lives. Now we Offer them to the world-honored one and beg him in mercy to accept them.”

The point here is that the heavenly kings have left their deep meditative joys and have descended from heaven to the human world for the sake of hearing the buddhas’ teachings. This important point is at the core of the teaching of the Lotus Sutra. A worthwhile life does not consist in merely spending one’s life in peace and quiet but in creating something good. When one tries to become a better person through his practice, this endeavor is the creation of good. When he does something for the benefit of other people, this is the creation of a still higher standard of good. The various arts are the creation of beauty, and all honest professions are the creation of various kinds of energy that are beneficial to society.

Creation is bound to bring with it pain and hardship. However, one finds life worth living when one makes a strenuous effort for the sake of something good. He endeavors to become a little better a person and to do just a little more for the good of other people. Through such positive endeavor we are enabled to feel deep joy in our human lives.

If we lived for a week in a world where we did not have hardships and the joy of creating something, we would tire of it. If we did not become bored with such a world, it would show that we were basically lazy in nature. Such people are sunk in illusion, and even if they rise to a heavenly world, at any moment they may fall immediately to the world of demons (shura) or to hell (jigoku).